Quote Originally Posted by Crocodile
Ok, it seemed to me from your earlier posts that you had reached a conclusion in your mind about the subject and you even tried to convince others (as part of the chatting experience).
I can hardly call that a conclusion. The original purpose of this thread was not a consensus, but argument.

If you think I'm over-dramatizing, think of the people who tried to kill themselves in prison, and of those who were successful in doing that.
I think this is not due to the imprisonment itself but rather due to some 'misunderstandings' with the cellmates or third-kind circumstances that make them do that.

On the other hand, there are lots of people whose daily living conditions are perhaps just a bit better than what they'd experience in prison. For those, the life imprisonment is pretty much nothing to be feared about. So, they would rather fear of the death.
And this layer is the most criminalized one. Some vagabonds even want to be imprisoned and commit some insignificant crimes and thus to live through the winter.

And in the end, there are phycos who just have the immediate strong urge of doing their evil things. They wouldn't care of any threat as long as it's not immediate.
And why the society need such people? Why we hold them in asylums and feed them?

So, what is your preference? The death or the life imprisonment?
I think it's imprisonment (if there are only two options). It's hard to imagine oneself in such a situation, but I would prefer death only if there wouldn't be anything left for me worth living. Otherwise I'd choose imprisonment and even if it's for a lifetime I would try very hard to escape.

And now's the biggest part. Let's say tomorrow is the public vote on the subject. So your purely 'personal' opinion may have some people 'universally' wrongfully killed. Wouldn't you think twice? You are a human after all...
I don't quite understand what do you mean. If you mean a general question like the one I used for the poll in this thread I would vote the same way I voted here. If you mean some particular case then of course I would think twice or even more, but if the arguments of the prosecutor would convince me then yes, I would vote 'guilty'. Of course I wouldn't vote for a 'wrongful' (to my opinion) execution.